Typical for this time of year, an eight-game Sunday tips off at 1:00 EDT, when the national TV doubleheader features four terrific teams. Enter All-Day or Early-Only contests to use those players. [Read more…]

Once a year, we take a break from evaluating rookies and examine how second-year players are doing.
This seemed like a good week to do that. Because our Rookie Rankings run every Friday, this week’s cycle saw just two actual games played due to the extended All-Star break. And no rookies from our most recent rankings played in those games.
Yes, we knew the trading deadline also was this week. But we didn’t think that would impact our rankings of sophomores. I mean,

The weekend came, bringing with it the Saturday All-Star festivities, headlined by the Dunk Contest. There was a significant amount of hype for Minnesota Timberwolves rookie Zach LaVine heading into the Sprite All-Star Dunk Contest.
Anyone that has seen him play knows that he has freakishly athletic hops.
For those who have witnessed his athleticism, it came as no surprise that he would win the contest. [Read more…]

Everything you need to know about Andrew Wiggins became evident about a week ago.
The league-worst Minnesota Timberwolves were hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were riding a winning streak. LeBron James, the NBA’s best player, was making his lone visit to the frozen tundra.
And the game marked the return to Minnesota of Kevin Love, who was unable to lift the Timberwolves out of mediocrity before forcing a trade last summer. Love was dealt to Cleveland, and Wiggins – the top overall

One of the biggest knocks against the NBA is that when the season starts, there are only five or six teams that can truly win the championship, making the regular season and the early playoff rounds interminably tedious.
Not this season.
As we reach the midway point – 18 teams have played at least 41 games, another nine have played 40 – there are no less than a dozen teams with legitimate title aspirations, including a handful that haven’t been in the

Happy New Year! The first two NBA games of 2015 will have trouble matching the excitement and drama of the 2014 finale. Russell Westbrook was ejected before the half for two technicals, so Kevin Durant took over. [Read more…]

On Thursday, we gave you our All-Breakout Team for the upcoming season for the Eastern Conference.
Today, we bring you our Western Conference All-Breakout Team. These are the players we believe are on the verge of breaking out or standing out.
We used the same parameters – five players, one at each position, but no rookies.
Let’s get right to it.
[Read more…]